Understanding
by Darigash
Summary: Hiccup's emotions in the first movie are hard to imagine. He was tormented for 10 years by the only people his age, and he became best friends with what was his most hated enemy. These one shots aren't about "What would have happened if…", it's about what actually happened to Hiccup to make him act this way, and trying to explain, maybe even understand his heart-felt emotions.
1. The Forging of an Axe

**This story is a series of one-shots, in order by date, that will try and convey the very strong emotions that Hiccup felt in the movie.**

**Hiccup is 9 in this one-shot.**

It was early morning, and I heard a voice near me. Nobody should be up right now, and I curiously wondered what they were talking about. The voice was coming from Astrid's house and they were talking quietly, as if afraid that Astrid would hear them.

"Gobber, I want to get my daughter an axe."

"Well, I could certainly make one for ya, for very cheap as well."

"Sorry Gobber, but I don't have the money to spare. Do you think… do you think that you could make one as a gift, a gift to Astrid."

"No… sorry. But I'll see if I have any used axe's that I can sharpen up and give to her."

"Thank you Gobber."

After overhearing the discussion, I ran back to the forge. Maybe by making Astrid an axe, the village would see that I really am useful, and maybe I could even get Astrid to pay attention to me. That would be amazing.

I immediately began making the axe. Astrid was the same size as me, so by taking the size of Gobber's axe and dividing it by the ratio of my height to Gobber's, I could make her an axe that would fit her. I did the math, and began making the axe not half an hour after I overheard Gobber.

5 hours later, it was nearing midday. I had finished Astrid's axe and was prepared to give it to her, but Gobber told me to give it to her parents instead. I didn't know why at the time, but I listened to him. He was Gobber, and I trusted him more than anyone else in the village.

"Mrs. Hofferson, I have to speak to you." I had walked over to Astrid's house while Astrid was away doing whatever.

"What is it Hiccup?"

"That axe you wanted earlier, I made it for Astrid. It's a gift, don't worry about the payment."

"Hiccup, this is magnificent. Thank you, I'm sure Astrid will love it."

I worked quietly in the forge until nighttime, when yet another dragon raid occurred. It was the perfect time to use my new invention, and this time it would work. I had calibrated everything and made sure that nothing was broken, before heading out into the raid.

I set my invention up and loaded it with a medium sized ball of iron. I called it a cannon, and it was supposed to shoot a large iron ball at the dragons. I aimed and fired at the nearest dragon, people running back and forth next to me. I activated the cannon, and it fired an iron ball right at the dragon. But the dragon moved at the last second, unknowingly dodging certain death. The ball however, not having anything to stop it, slammed into the forge, causing rocks to fly everywhere and the forge to set on fire.

The dragon raid was over, but my embarrassment wasn't. Everyone looked at me, yelling at how my inventions never work and I needed to be locked up and not let out in the village. But these threats paled in comparison, when Astrid walked over with her new axe… my axe, and held it against my throat.

"Are you trying to help the dragons? Your 'inventions' never do anything good, so just stop. Why can't you just stay in the forge and work, Thor knows it would be better if you just worked on the weapons like Gobber does instead of wasting your time on these 'inventions' of yours. Just do what Gobber does, he helps people, he even made this for me." She gestured to her axe.

I couldn't believe it. She thought Gobber made her axe, all the time I spent on it and who gets the credit! "Fine, just leave me alone." I said as I moved her axe out of the way and began fixing the forge, the Viking's taunting laugh in the background.


	2. My Life is Negatively Useful

**Hiccup is 14 in this one-shot. It is before the movie.**

I woke up once again to pain in my shoulder. It was from the last time Snotlout picked a fight with me, and I really hated him for doing so. What did I ever do to him to deserve this treatment by my own cousin? I had never done anything even remotely bad to him, he bully's me every day and I could do nothing about it, because the other Vikings my age followed him like he descended from Valhalla, though it's more likely that he climbed out of Hel just to torment me.

Did I even want to get up? Was there even a point to my everyday village life? Gobber could handle the forge on his own, he didn't need some scrawny toothpick helping him. I did nothing else of use to the village, so was there even a point to me going outside, going to face the beating I will inevitably get. I could think of nothing anybody in this village has ever done for me; why would I expect them to suddenly decide that I deserved a reward for dealing with this every day.

The only option I had would be to go outside, to the forest and hope that they would not find me. Hope beyond hope that Snotlout's desire to make me suffer was smaller than my will to get away from him. Maybe then, I could have a day of peace, a day I did not have to get beaten down. Not just physically, but emotionally as well.

So I left the village and headed into the forest. Berk had nothing but bad memories for me anyways. Why did I care about the time I gave Astrid my axe, or the endless hours I spent sharpening the twin's spears. It's not like they used them for anything anyways, not aside from using them to hurt me.

I spent the daylight hours in the forest, doing anything I could to keep myself entertained. I would hunt, but I was not strong enough. I would explore, but it was too dangerous. I could do nothing except for wait until the day was over, wait until I could get back to sleep, the only time I was free from my life.

Is this really how bad my life is, am I really that… useless? I spent the entire day out in the forest doing nothing, and I still felt it better than my regular routine. Was my life in Berk really so bad, that it was worse than doing nothing all day, making no progress in life? I should leave Berk, never come back. If my life here had zero usefulness, then my life in Berk must be… negatively useful or something.

If only I could make a difference, do something that would prove to Berk that I was worthy of reward, worthy of being able to spend my time, worthy of my own existence. But I knew that would never happen. Not because I couldn't do it, but because they wouldn't accept it. They wouldn't accept it because I was Hiccup.

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><p><strong>Yeah, the first few are going to be focusing on just how badly Hiccup was treatedhow bad he felt. The movie does his past no justice, and I have yet to read a fanfiction that goes into detail about just how badly he was treated. Poor Hiccup.**


	3. Risking My Life to Save Another's

"Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug. No, not me. I manage to lose an entire dragon. GAH!" The one thing I finally do right, nobody believes me. The one thing I do right, the entire village mocks me for it. The one thing I do right, and I can't even find the proof, the proof that I did in fact shoot down a Nightfury.

I slap a branch and it hits me back in the face. I welcome the pain that it brings, it distracts me from the situation that I'm in. Lifting my head up, I see a large tree snapped in half, and a long trench of overturned earth. It looked like a dragon crashed here. Maybe that dragon was a Nightfury.

I hunched down and looked over a small hill, seeing a large black dragon. I slowly approach it, a feeling relief sweeping through my body. "Oh wow. I did it. I did it. This fixes everything." I had shot down a Nightfury, I would earn the respect I so desperately needed. People would wonder in awe how I managed to kill the most dangerous dragon ever recorded.

"I have brought down this mighty beast!" I said, putting my foot down on the Nightfury. It grumbled and moved slightly, causing me to quickly back away in fear. I got out my dagger, ready to claim what was rightfully mine.

"I'm going to kill you dragon. I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking. I am a VIKING!" I raised my dagger, ready to prove that I was a real Viking, that I was worth more than any of those teens who thought they were so much better than I. Holding my dagger over him, I realized I was about to take his life away, I would be stopping everything he ever could do in one fell swoop.

The dragon opened his eye, and I see fear, sadness, and loneliness. I separated him from his family, everything he had ever known. I had ruined his life, I could not take what was left of it away from him. The dragon closed his eyes and lie over, resigning himself to his fate, knowing that any Viking would kill him then and there.

But I am not a Viking. I lowered my dagger, ashamed by my actions. "I did this." I mumbled to myself, realizing this dragon felt emotions the same way I did, that I had caused so much pain, worry, and fear. It was all my fault.

The dragon deserved to be let go, he deserved to live. I could never contribute anything to my species, this dragon could. He could do things I never could, things that I never will. I had to let him go. I could only hope he would not kill me in revenge for what I did to him, and I would not blame him. My life didn't matter anyways. The worst that could happen would be the removal of another one of Berks problems.

I took out my dagger, and cut the ropes immobilizing him. One by one, they fell off, loosening their grip on him. Did I just say 'him'? Was that significant in some way?

I cut of the last rope, and the dragon pounced on me, pinning me down. I was scared, I knew I was going to die, but I had accepted my death, the same way the dragon did when I could have killed him. I was scared, but I did not regret. For some reason, the dragon roared in my ear and flew off, followed by a loud crash.

What that dragon was thinking, I would never know. Maybe it thought the same things I did, maybe it decided I was not a threat, maybe he simply felt indebted to me for saving his life. I got up, beginning to walk back to Berk, and feinted.

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><p><strong>For those of you who are confused, no, I am not publishing or writing them in order. I am simply writing whichever scene I feel like, and putting it in where it is supposed to. The chapters, however, are sorted by how old Hiccup is, youngest being first.<strong>


	4. Mindless Beasts

**In response to Guest, no, these one-shots will be following the course of the movie. I will probably stop the "Story" (And by story I mean one-shots organized by order) before he goes into the ring to fight the nightmare. **

**Another note, I am not skipping over the fights in the ring or any other events that I have not wrote. I simply write whichever scene I feel like writing (including some additional scenes for emotion), and stuff it in where it belongs on the timeline.**

**This one-shot is set between when Hiccup fights the Gronckle and when he finds Toothless in the cove**.

"A dragon will always go for the kill." Those words echoed in my mind, repeating themselves over and over again. Why didn't that Nightfury? He could have easily killed me, and I have done nothing for him aside from spare his life. Was that all that he needed not to kill me, or did it have something to do with dragon honor. I shook my head. What was I thinking, dragon honor. They were mindless beasts, incapable of something such as honor.

But why else would that dragon spare my life. There was no other reason for it to do so, and I was seriously beginning to doubt what my elders had taught me. This shook the foundations of everything that I had been taught, maybe those foundations were built wrong? I kept replaying the events that occurred between us, and I could find nothing that would have kept it from killing me aside from repaying his debt.

Dragons may be deadly, they may have killed hundreds of us in the past, but maybe there is more to them then the fangs and the fire. Maybe they weren't the mindless beasts the rest of Berk thought they were. If somebody was going to find out, it would be me. I couldn't tell anyone else about it, or they would kill it, jeez. Am I really trying to protect that dragon?

I thought about it more, and realized that I was actually protecting that dragon. But I did it so I could study it more, not because I didn't want it to die, right? Of course. I would never protect a dragon because I didn't want it to die. I would study it, make an entry into the book of dragons, and bring back its head. But the voice nagging in the back of my head didn't stop.

It took an hour of walking around in the forest for me to find Nightfury scales, the only clue I had to where it had gone. I found the forest to be a place of peace, a place I could forget about the everlasting torment that occurred in Berk. I could take my mind off of everything back there, and study this dragon in complete peace.

Following the scales and the large dents in the tree led me to a small cove, a place a wounded dragon would get stuck in. But there was nothing there, another three hours of my time would be wasted yet again. "Why am I so stupid?" I mumbled to myself. I was naive, I actually thought I would just waltz in the forest with a book and find the dragon again? Now the only way I could gain Berk's favor back was gone.

A large black shape flashed in front of my face, screeching as it attempted to climb out of the cove, only to land on the ground again. I was terrified, then relieved. The dragon didn't see me, and now I could observe it, hidden by the cove. In just a few seconds, I had a picture. It was just like any other dragon, albeit with two "sets" of wings instead of just one. It could just fly away, right?

I looked at the dragon again, and saw it was missing its left tailfin. I quickly fixed my drawing to match, then realized for the second time that week that I had well and truly ruined that dragon's life. I wasn't feeling sorry for the dragon anyways, I would never do that. This was good, now it couldn't fly away, but guilt I didn't want to be there clutched at my chest. Without realizing it, I dropped my charcoal and silently cursed, hoping the Nightfury didn't notice. It did.

But to my surprise, it didn't do anything except look at me funny, in an almost curious way. It looked like it wanted to know more about humans, and it wondered why a human would be stupid enough to return to where he was almost killed. I walked away slowly, hoping not to upset the dragon, and wondered, thinking of what I should do next.


End file.
